


Let the Sands of Time Scrape us Clean

by Pakeha



Series: Child of the Enemy [6]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Devotion, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Minor Violence, Obsession, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Redemption, Self-Denial, Self-Discipline, Service Top, Stockholm Syndrome, mild sexual coercion, sort of, supportive family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:07:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4659078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pakeha/pseuds/Pakeha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all of Imhotep's violence Alex would not be broken.  In the face of his redemption however, Alex just might shatter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Sands of Time Scrape us Clean

**Author's Note:**

> So turns out my memory of these films was a bit off and so there are some definitely continuity errors between what I’ve written and what’s in the film (I mean, more than the obvious) so if that’s been bugging anyone, my bad. I honestly have been trying not to stress too badly about adhering to canon because I’m already having Alex get buggered by the bad guy sooooo...  
> Anyways I just wanted to acknowledge my ignorance in case its been bothering anyone. I might go back one day and rewrite bits so they all fit a bit better together, but not right now. 
> 
> Also thanks folks to whoever has stuck through this far. From Porn to... this. Which I know is different, but I hope you dig it. I have plans for another series that's a lot more plotty while still being full of kinky (more consensual) sex. Obviously RL is a bitch which demands all my time and money, but hopefully I'll get the balls rolling on that tale soon.

It’s been such a short time. 

A matter of weeks since London, since he was kidnapped, since he started this break-neck race across the world. 

A week since Imhotep first took a hold of his hips and pushed him up against a rough stone wall and _stole him._

Mere days since that son-of-a-bitch made him a little more jaded, a little angrier, a little more worldly. 

It seems only proper for it to end with the world literally crashing down around them. 

Alex gives a yell and tries to pull free, but he’s held back by his uncle. The two of them watch, helpless, as Evie O’Connell risks everything to save her husband. 

“He’s going to fall!” The teenager wails, but Jonathan’s found some strength in his thin hands and he’s holding Alex fast. 

The ancient stone walls roar as they crack and chatter apart, as the Scorpion King’s curse implodes on itself, taking anything and everything with it. 

There’s a chasm in the floor, like a gaping mouth, _swallowing_. It’s impossible, and it’s hungry, and side by side enemies hold on with any strength they have left, clinging to life. 

Alex’s eyes are wide in horror as he watches Imhotep raise up his arm, begging for help from the woman who claimed to love him more then death. 

Alex feels sick as he watches her run away. 

He feels relief when his parents both scrabble their way to safety, gratitude that he is with them now after all that he’s been through. There were moments in the past week where in the privacy of his own mind his steady mask of precocious confidence had withered and he’d been certain he would never see his family again. It’s a blessing to hold them now, even if everything else is horrible, even if this is the end. 

Imhotep watches back. He watches his enemy rescued by a love stronger than his own. He watches Alex cling to his kin. He watches this family, whose bonds are stronger than time, stronger than any accursed power-

He watches his damnable, beautiful, defiant prize and remains silent.

Alex redoubles his efforts to break free, struggling against his Uncle’s hold, shouting, because he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows-

Imhotep smiles to Rick O’connell. He concedes the battle. He loses the war. 

Then at the last his eyes turn to Alex. 

Damn him. 

This ancient creature of malice, this last plague of Egypt, let’s go of the ledge, and falls to the abyss. 

\-----

His last sight in the living world is to be a vision of the son of his greatest enemy: The young face, pale, dirty, and warped by disbelief-

As Imhotep falls he does not think about Anck Su Namun’s betrayal, how their love was so little and so fragile, so self-centered, so black. He doesn’t think about his failure to usurp the Scorpion King’s power, or how any moment now he will be made to face up to his sins, finding himself rent apart, heart devoured by crocodiles. 

He doesn’t think about that. 

Through the numbness of failure he thinks about Alex, about the warmth of his body, the quickness of his mind, the cleverness of his smile. 

As he falls he feels grief, but not for his lost love, or his lost life, or his lost glory. 

Numb with realization he feels grief for _Alex_. 

So he closes his eyes as the crack in the world recedes into nothing. He gives in to death. 

Let Anubis take him.  
\--

It’s a blur for Alex as they exit the temple. The border where sound and sight meet is smeared and badly rendered; the whirlwind around them is overwhelming. He keeps his eyes shut for much of it, unable to keep from replaying it over and over in his mind. 

Imhotep’s silence when he looked at him. His smile. 

Imhotep letting go. 

Imhotep falling. 

He sobs pathetically as they climb, knowing it is lost to the cacophony around them, unable to pull himself together, touching his mother and father and uncle whenever he can, trusting them to help him get to the top, trusting them not to leave him, not to leave him-

When they’re huddled at the peak of the temple waiting for the end his tears stop. He knows its over, there’s no way out, and its a relief almost, to clutch at his family and believe that it’s done now, everything is over-

So when the ship comes he doesn’t know what to feel, but he lets his father help him and his mother to safety first, then he reaches back for his father, for his idiot, idiot uncle-

He sits huddled at the prow of the ship, head to his knees, trying just to breathe, to keep on breathing. 

It’s over. Somehow, someway, it’s over. 

They’re alive. 

His arm feels naked without the weight of the bracelet, and his clothes feel rough-spun and gritty on his skin. Has it really only been one week? He feels strange, misshapen, raw. 

Around him a frigid wind rushes as they speed away from the horrors of the day. Alex’s skin is pimpled from cold but he does not shiver.

Abruptly, a coat is dropped over his shoulders and Alex’s head shoots up startled, his heart thundering in his chest. He didn’t hear anyone approach. He doesn’t see-

“Easy.” His father murmurs, and he’s right in front of him, lowering himself slowly into a crouch, the fingertips of his left hand just barely touching the top of his knee. Alex stares at them. Just stares. 

He feels strange. He feels so strange. 

“Easy.” Rick murmurs again and Alex shuts his eyes, curling up under the coat. “It’s okay, buddy.”

Just his fingertips against Alex’s knee and it’s almost too much but he’s nodding along. Outside his body is still but inside he is shaking. He can feel it. His bones are rattling around in his skin and he shifts enough to rake a hand through his hair, eyes shut tight again, wet, wet-

“I’ve got you.”

It’s too much. He feels so very strange and he chokes on a sob as he tilts into his father’s strength and lets the man wrap his arms around him. 

“It’s okay.”

It’s not. Nothing is okay, and Alex can’t even begin to admit it. He should be relieved. He should be grateful. 

Yet he feels like they’ve lost. He feels like things will never be alright again. 

It’s _wrong_. God damn him. _God damn him._

“I’m sorry.” He manages to gasp, crying. Distantly he hears voices murmuring, the pilot maybe, Uncle Jonathan, his Mother-

He flinches, but Rick’s arms stay warm and reassuring around him. His father has tilted his head to rest his cheek on top of Alex’s hair his body is warming but the internal shaking is turning into visible tremors. Why is he shaking?

The pilot is talking and Rick is shifting and someone else settles next to him. 

‘ _Mom_.’ He identifies, dully by the shape of the hand which reaches out to touch him. When he can gather the courage he shifts his own hand so his little finger can just curl against those she has resting on his knee and it’s not enough, not nearly enough, but it’s better. 

“You gotta drink this.” Rick’s voice is firm and Alex flinches, opening his eyes and the world is blurry and far to bright and it hurts to look anywhere, even if its just down at the wooden boards of the ship deck. He almost shakes his head but it seems like too much to reply, too much to invest. 

“Just a sip.”

There’s a cup to his lips and he does drink because it’s expected. His mother’s thumb is moving over his kneecap and he can’t get the swallowing thing down because he chokes and his father pulls the cup back so he can cough. 

“That’s alright.” Rick soothes. “You’re alright.”

He’s not alright. He really isn’t. 

“I’m okay.” He sniffs hard, takes an unsteady breath, and tries to be still. “I’m okay.”

“Sure.” Rick agrees, rubbing his shoulder and it’s warmer where he’s holding him, the coat that’s been placed over his shoulders containing him. “We can just sit for a while though, yeah? Think we’ve earned it.”

Alex garbles a laugh then shuts his mouth tight and winces. 

“You’re alright honey, you’re here with us, we’re safe.” Evie’s voice is softer against his ear and he tries to inhale through his nose but it gets caught up in all the wet shit getting stuck in his throat and _god damn it_ -

“I’m sorry.” He gasps again, hand over his face, muffling his words. “I’m sorry, I’ll be fine.”

“No one’s mad, Alex.” Jonathan speaks this time, somewhere off to the side and he doesn’t come closer and Alex is so fucking _grateful_ -

In the jungle, when his Father had taken his hand and they had _run for his life_ , outstripping monsters and soldiers and dawn itself, Rick hadn’t said anything. The yellow band of metal around his neck had been conspicuously unremarked upon and Alex hadn’t brought it up. His head and his heart were still unsettled, spinning wildly out of control, feeling resentful, and abandoned, and triumphant, and free. 

It seems like his time is up though because his dad is holding his shoulders steady and he’s sitting close. He says them quietly but still the words “Do you want me to get something to cut it off?” make Alex shake _harder._

He should. He really, really should. 

Both of his hands move to hold the band of metal. 

“Please don’t.” He manages to scrape the words out and it hurts to speak and to swallow and he’s so _ashamed_ -

He buries his head against his knees, curling away from his father’s touch, and he’s so overwhelmed, he’s having trouble breathing. It’s too much, too many people, too many secrets, too much guilt, too much grief-

He breathes out and it’s a sob, he can’t do this he can’t-

He-

He-

He can’t think, he-

He’s been abandoned, he-

He’s free, he-

He can’t finish a fucking sentence and he’s sobbing messily against the fabric of his trousers and no one is moving closer and no one is leaving and that’s okay just no one move, no one move, no one move-

It takes a long time. It’s a lot of shaking and snot and struggling to breathe and it might be minutes or hours he can’t really tell but after a long time his mind is so wrung out that he can’t think. He doesn’t think. It feels blank. Numb. 

It’s okay to just stare with watery eyes at the planks of the ship deck and not feel anything. 

And still his father and his mother and his uncle are there, just sitting with him. They don’t speak, and that’s good. That’s good. 

The wind is sharp and cold this high up in the air but Alex doesn’t feel it. Under his father’s coat he huddles in shivery silence and the world is quiet and that’s good. 

He’s empty. He feels empty. 

That’s good. 

His mind checks out, and he slips into an uneasy sleep. 

\-----

There are no crocodiles. No scales. No ibis headed demons writing in the ledger of his sins. 

There is only black and white and emptiness. Numbness. 

There is only the patchy sound of a wind he cannot feel over sand he cannot see. 

Imhotep opens his eyes on a throne of colour-less stone in a faded land without earth or sky. Around him are broken pillars, the shambles of a once glorious temple, a dais and an altar to unknown glories. 

Where is this?

He tries to breathe but can feel no motion in his chest, no movement of air in his throat. He turns to inspect his surroundings slowly, expecting broken bones and bruises and pain, but he feels nothing. Only a glance to his hands proves to him that they are even there, he is so lacking in physical feeling. 

In life - his first, accursed life - he was a high priest. Much he has learned of the sacred, of the occult, of the holy mysteries of life and death. In all of that learning he had never heard a whisper of a place like this... This endless emptiness. 

Is this death then? Is this damnation?

Cautiously he pushes himself to his feet, and finds that he can balance. He steps forward and he finds that he can walk but it feels almost like floating- insubstantial. 

He glances at his feet to prove that he is sure of himself, then he looks up again and steps forward, walking to the edge of the raised stone platform he has awoken on. Between the cracked pillars, below the steps of stone, there is only white. Perfect, unblemished, unbroken _white_.

Save for one smudge in the distance. 

How distant is impossible to tell. Is it another temple? Is he meant to walk there? 

A spike of irritation surges in him. 

He was ready for torture, for eternal punishment. He was certain of it. 

Perhaps he even deserved it.

Now he is here.

He has never liked surprises. 

Scowling - or, he thinks he is scowling, he cannot really feel his face - he turns his head upwards to heights of blinding white and curses the powers which offer him no satisfaction, peace. 

There is only silence, no words spilling from his lips, and he tries to open his mouth to scream but he cannot feel it, he cannot know-

With a deeply furrowed brow he turns his eyes to the distant smudge again. 

He doesn’t even know if there is a ground beneath him, he has no way of being certain-

Still he steps forward, off of the temple stone, and his feet find something solid in the emptiness. There is enough of something to hold him. It is enough. 

There is nothing to be gained from indecision. 

He begins to walk. 

\-----

Eventually Alex wakes up and the first thing he feels when he gathers his senses is embarrassment. 

His father’s coat is still draped over his shoulders but it’s night now and it’s only barely enough of a shelter from the cold. He sniffs hard and shivers and curls up tighter. 

Next to him someone stirs. 

“Alex?” He hears his mother ask cautiously and he winces, turning to face her with a weak and apologetic smile. 

“Mum.”

Even in the dark of night with some distant lantern on the bow casting their only light, Evie’s face is noticeably blotchy like she’s been crying and Alex _hates_ that he’s done that. 

“I’m sorry.” He rasps out before his mother can say anything more and the searching expression on her face turns to one of heartbreak. 

“Don’t apologize.” She scolds gently. She has her own knees drawn up to her chest, a gray army blanket draped over her shoulders, and she unfolds stiffly, unwrapping herself and shifting closer to her son. Gradually she nudges Alex away from the ship wall to put the blanket over him too, then she pulls the edges close together once-again, their shoulders pressed tight together, warm. 

They sit in silence for a long time. She doesn’t ask if he’s alright and he doesn’t apologize again and it’s okay. It’s okay. 

Still there’s something unpleasant and anxious in Alex’s chest and he swallows hard before he asks “Is Dad mad?”

His mother moves her arm so she can take his hand and she threads her thin fingers between his own. 

“Not at you darling, never at you.”

Alex sniffs. “Are you sure?”

Her hand, strong despite its slenderness, squeezes his firmly and holds tight. “Completely.”

There’s another stretch of silence between them. 

Alex’s eyes watch the ocean of stars which sail over the ship and he drifts a bit, okay with this for now. 

His body hurts. His heart hurts. He wants a bath. He wants a bed. He wants to go back to before any of this had ever happened and the worst he had had to worry about was his parents’ frustration with him wreaking havoc at another dig site. 

This emptiness is good. It feels safe. Even through the quiet, though, he knows that lurking at the very edge is a sense of utter _devastation_ , and he doesn’t want it. He does _not._

Yet he knows that if he closed his eyes right now all he’d see is that dead-man’s smile on Imhotep’s face as he let go and he fell. 

If he closes his eyes he will see him fall. 

He will see him fall. 

He will see him fall. 

He swallows and bites his tongue to ground himself. 

He is empty. He feels nothing. 

“Alex?” His mother says quietly next to him and he is empty. He is empty. 

“Hmm?” 

She squeezes his hand again and that’s good too, that’s grounding. “I know it’s hard, darling, but if you want to talk, if you need to talk, you can come to any of us. We will all listen, we won’t hold any judgement, your father and I and your Uncle Jonathan. Just tell me that you know that.”

“I understand.” Alex says stiffly and after a moment Evie sighs and he feels her nod.

“Did he hurt you?” She asks very quietly and he doesn’t want to lie to her, and he’s not sure any answer he can come up with is completely true. 

The worst part is he knows that even a few days ago he would have answered without hesitation, but there’s this hurt in his belly which makes everything feel _false_. 

“Yes.” He says finally, subdued, and god bless his mother because she just nods again and squeezes his hand and she only asks if he needs anything and he says not right now and she understands. 

Because he does need something, but there’s no way to get it. It’s dead and it’s gone and it was a toxin anyways, but there’s something wrong in his head because he _wants_ it. 

He hates himself a little bit. He hates _him_ more, but he also misses him. Oh, god, how he misses him. 

Quiet voices talk from the main deck but the mast is in the way and Alex can’t see who it is. Someone laughs quietly. 

His mind drifts out thin and insubstantial and it’s an easy, empty place. 

Eventually the sound of hard soled shoes on the ship deck rouses him and he turns his bleary gaze to the approaching figure of his father, his hands carrying a pair of tin soup cups full of something hot enough to be giving off steam. Alex’s stomach turns and he tucks his nose below the edge of the blanket so he can’t smell it. 

“My two favourite people.” Rick drawls, settling himself with a rough grace to sit cross-legged in front of Alex and his mother. 

Evie smiles and emerges from their cocoon enough to reach out for her dinner, thanking her husband who smiles back before he turns his eyes to Alex. 

Whose stomach does not like the idea of this one bit. 

“Not hungry.” Alex protests faintly, eyeing the remaining mug with suspicion. 

A frown mars Rick’s features and he stares down at the mug’s contents with a furrowed brow. “You like this stuff.” He goads and after a moment’s hesitation Alex tugs the blanket down just a bit, daring a sniff. 

Where Rick O’Connell got the ingredients to make chili on this ship he does not know but it smells alright. 

His stomach settles a little. 

“I’m really not hungry.” He protests anyway, not trusting himself but Rick scoffs and shoves the mug towards him. 

“Just have a bit.” He insists. “I’ll eat the rest.”

Alex gives his father a dirty look, but he unwinds his hands from the blanket anyways and takes the mug. The spoon in it is sticking straight up, the stew of beans and meat and what looks like maybe potatoes is thick and hearty. 

It’s a tradition for the O’Connell clan to make chili on the first night on any dig and on the last. The ingredients change a bit depending on where they are and what’s available, but Rick keeps enough spices with his travel pack that the flavor stays familiar. 

Sometimes Evelyn pretends the stew is common, too _American_ , and that she only eats it out of difference to her husband, but Alex and Rick know that she likes it. They all like it. Rick isn’t much of a cook but he can make this, and he makes it well. 

Alex has a lot of good memories associated with this food. 

He carefully stirs the mug once before gathering a spoonful and raising it to his lips. 

When it hits his tongue it’s hot and savory and _good_. 

A knot which he hadn’t even noticed tied into the muscles of his back unties and he eats some more. 

In the end he only consumes about two thirds of the mug before he passes it back to his father but it’s a lot more than he’d thought he’d manage. His mother looks relieved so that’s good. 

It’s good. 

His father takes it from him like he begrudges finishing what’s left in the mug but his words are light-hearted and Alex doesn’t mind, rolling his eyes as Rick scrapes up the last spoonful of beans and broth with exaggerated focus. 

“A little better?” The O’Connell patriarch inquires after a bit and Alex shrugs but his stomach is settled. 

“Well you’re gonna eat a bit more tomorrow, looks like he didn’t feed you too well.” The tone is deliberately kept light but Alex knows his father, knows his anger, and he shrugs, his eyes skidding to the side and he stares back out at the night sky. 

The resulting silence is not easy but his father doesn’t demand any more and that’s good. 

Alex doesn’t want to talk about it. The gold band around his throat is obvious enough, a sign of humiliation and ownership and hopefully his parents don’t know, will never know quite how far that goes. They maybe know enough though. He hopes they won’t ask. 

He doesn’t want to talk about it. 

Unconsciously Alex raises his fingertips to touch the deceptively delicate ornament. 

“I know you don’t want to talk about it.” His father begins after a long moment and Alex almost laughs but instead he just shuts his eyes and shrugs a little before Rick continues. 

“I know that, but like I’m sure your mom’s said, you can tell us anything. Won’t change us as a family, okay? Nothing that monster could do to you would make you any different.”

 _‘Please don’t call him that.’_ Alex thinks but he doesn’t say it out loud. He’s not that cruel. 

“We’ll cut it off when you’re ready, okay?” Rick finishes, patting his son on his shoulder and collecting his wife’s mug before rising and heading back towards the main deck. 

As his father’s footsteps recede, Alex just focuses on breathing. 

It’s a while before his mother tries speaking again. 

“You should get some proper sleep. We’ll be landing tomorrow to check in with Ardeth. You can finally meet him properly. I think the two of you will get on well.” 

Alex just tilts his head to regard her blearily, then shrugs. There’s another beat of silence before Evie sighs and pushes herself to her feet. When she reaches down and pulls Alex up as well, the blanket still wrapped tight around his shoulder, she murmurs to him. “It will be alright, love. It really will, I promise.”

As they make tracks for the galley below deck Alex hopes so. He really, really hopes so. 

\--

This room is red. 

In the white place he had found a temple, walls tall and completely smooth except for one low dark room. Passing through it was like stepping through a thin skin of water, and then he had entered the labyrinth. 

There have been many rooms, all a monochrome wash of a single muted colour. 

This room is red. 

Most of the rooms have been empty, bearing silent witness to Imhotep’s passage. Some rooms however, some rooms-

In the red room there is a pedestal and Imhotep approaches is slowly, cautiously. 

Some of these rooms house objects, remnants, scraps of his past lives. He has held them in his hands, studied every detail and carving on each canopic jar and oil lamp and scarab, and he doesn’t understand. 

Does some power press him for his guilt? For _sorrow_? For _penance_?

He has left behind him a trail of shattered pottery and scattered beads. 

He has no regrets. He feels nothing but self-righteous indignation, the same smoldering fury he felt when he was first _damned._

If they mean to break him they will be sorely disappointed.

He has raged through these halls for weeks he thinks. Months perhaps. These rooms are endless.

Now, in the red room, there is a familiar gold collar glittering in the gloom. 

For the first time Imhotep feels a stillness in himself, a silence which quenches his anger. 

_He hopes the child is yet stubborn and strong. He hopes he has not been broken._

Along ruddy walls there is minimalist decoration: star charts - carved deep - glitter with hidden luminescence. There are the signs of the obelisk, the barge, the lovers. 

His feet carry him to the collar resting in silence in the middle of the room and he reaches out to touch it with reverence. 

How Alex hated it. 

How sweet it had looked around his throat. 

There, somewhere deep inside Imhotep’s being, there is a pang of grief for the loss of his sweetest prize.

He makes no move to pick up the collar, to rend it apart as he has the other artifacts he’s encountered. 

Glancing up he studies the signs on the walls, reads them for deeper meaning, but he is illiterate in this world. Ignorant. Powerless. 

For some reason in this room, knowing this does not make him quite as angry as before. In the absence of that flame, he feels hollow. 

He turns his eyes from the stars and wanders on. 

\-----

They fly through the night, the morning, and the better part of the afternoon before Rick spots the train of camels and horses Ardeth’s small contingent of Medjai are taking back to their permanent camp. Alex doesn’t know the man well enough to pick him out at such a distance but his father seems sure of himself as he orders Ozzy to put them on the ground. The pilot makes a few complaints about stopping so abruptly but he doesn’t put up a real fight, just takes them in a swift descent to the rolling sands. 

It’s a bit early to stop for the night but people are in a celebratory mood and when Rick hollers his greetings from the windblown deck of the airship the Medjai leader laughs and calls back that they will set up camp now, gesturing for Ozzy to tether the ship some ways away. 

Things are a bit of whirlwind after that. The pilot will stay with the ship - he’s a bit of an odd one if you ask Alex but he envies him his privacy - and Alex, Rick, Evie, and Jonathan disembark to solid ground for the night.

In short order they’ve got tents up and they’re sitting around a fire. Evie and Rick have Alex tucked between them in a way which is both smothering and a relief to Alex’s weathered nerves. He feels at once like his first day of freedom has taken a small eternity and passed in the blink of an eye. Either way, all day on the noisy, rocking ship deck has left him exhausted and he stares blankly into the plate of flat bread and simple stew he’s been handed for supper. 

He eats little, and eventually his mother’s gentle hand takes the food from him and he stares instead at his hands, at his knees, at the sand between his feet that cools swiftly now that the sun has set below the horizon. 

Visions of woven silk rugs, gauzy robes, and madmen _falling_ buffet around his brain and Alex closes his eyes against them, the quiet lull of the conversations going on around him blending in and out of each other, his brain processing bits and pieces at a time. 

Gradually it gets quieter as Ardeth’s warriors depart the circle one by one to retire to their bedrolls. 

The wind shushes over the sand and the moon is bright in the sky, surrounded by stars. 

When a warm hand settles over his shoulder he startles and looks up abruptly at the face of his father, his eyes betraying nothing, but his touch steady. 

“Time for bed, kid.” He says softly. Alex glances over at the tent he’ll share with his parents with trepidation. 

There’s a sick, tense, sort of nausea in his gut and he shakes his head. 

“I’m going to stay up for a bit.” He mutters, voice hoarse, and he realizes sharply that he hasn’t said anything for _hours_ , not since lunchtime. 

His father holds on for a long minute and Alex can feel the calculation in his gaze, the consideration. 

“I will be staying up longer myself, O’Connell. I will send him to bed when I retire.” Alex looks up through his lashes and see’s Ardeth’s steady gaze trained on his father, legs crossed, his hands clasped casually in front of him. 

“Me too.” Uncle Jonathan says from his other side, but Alex can’t see him around his mother and he makes a fist and counts to ten because something is crawling unpleasantly in him and he doesn’t know how to quell it. 

“It’s alright.” Evie says quietly and Alex relaxes a hair even as he feels his father squeeze his shoulder and let go. 

“Alright. Don’t stay up much longer though, we fly through the night tomorrow and god knows no one can sleep with Ozzy at the helm.” 

Jonathan laughs and Alex winces.

He’s tired, he should sleep, but as his parents stand up to go to bed he makes no move to change his mind and join them. 

“I Love you Alex, Goodnight.” Evie murmurs to his hair before kissing his brow and walking off. 

“Love you kid.” Rick adds his own quiet affirmation and then he’s off to follow his wife and Alex let’s his head slump forward just a bit to muffle his sigh. 

The Desert is just the endless susurration of wind and sand. 

Alex breathes deeply and lets it lull him. 

“So how much do you want for it?”

Jonathan’s voice jolts him suddenly to alertness, and he looks guiltily at his uncle. 

“What?” He croaks.

“The collar.” He says bluntly, tipping his head forward, his eyes on the yellow band around Alex’s neck. “That’s solid gold there. I’d be happy to take it off your hands. I know a man or two in Cairo who could turn it into cash right quick.”

“ _What?_ ” Alex’s hackles raise, his shoulders moving up defensively. 

“How’s fifty sound? Fair? I’d take a small cut of course, a finder’s fee, but the rest would be yours old boy.”

“No, I don’t-” Alex falters a bit, unsure of how to phrase it. Jonathan raises an eyebrow as he meets his gaze. 

“A hundred then? Hard bargain.”

“You can’t have it!” Alex gasps, a hand wrapped around the band, his fingers hooked around it like they had in the first days Imhotep had had it sealed around his neck, tugging, tugging, tugging-

“You wish to keep it?” The voice from across the fire startles and Alex’s head whips back to look at Ardeth, his eyes wild. 

“None of your business.” He snaps, not thinking and suddenly pissed off. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

He doesn’t know Ardeth. He’s his parents’ friend, not his. Who does he think he is?

The Medjai shrugs and drops his eyes back to the fire. His posture remains relaxed.

“In order to secure that to you he would have had to hold you down and call a metal smith to melt the band into place. I can’t imagine that is a pleasant memory, I do not see why you would wish to carry a reminder.”

At Ardeth’s description Alex shivers and shakes his head but says nothing. He remembers the thick pad of leather which had been the only thing separating him from the worst burns of his life, the two massive men on either side of him, holding him down, holding his head still as he swore and tried to fight. He remembers Imhotep sitting nearby, watching in silence. All he could see of the man had been his feet and his legs, draped in one of those damn robes. 

He couldn’t breathe, the leather taking up all the slack the collar afforded, pulling the metal ring tight against the front of his throat. He couldn’t breathe. 

“The Monster-”

“Could you not call him that?” Alex manages to snap, wide eyes trained on the fire, a quiet, desperate sort of anger burning in his breast.

“Why would I not?” There is steel in Ardeth’s tone. He sounds cold and just as angry as Alex and the teenager scowls and pointedly does not flinch. “After what he has done to you - done to hundreds, perhaps thousands of my fellow countrymen - what else would you have me call him?”

There’s something damning about the way Alex has to swallow before speaking. His chest is so tight. “He could... Sometimes he...”

Alex’s attempts to speak derail into a bitter silence. He raises his head but instead of meeting Ardeth’s eye his gaze is set somewhere over his shoulder towards the stars sitting low on the rolling horizon. The frown on his lips is determined

“Alexander.” 

Ardeth’s tone is solemn and Alex takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. 

“You are not the first who seeks to afford some measure of goodness to a man who has harmed them. Perhaps he could be kind, or provide some measure of consolation to you in your captivitiy, but you cannot forget that he was your _captor_. You were his prisoner.”

“I know.” Alex grits out. “I know, fuck him, he was an asshole. I _know_.” He sniffs and rubs his nose against his forearm viciously. 

“I hate him.” He croaks wetly. “I really, really do.”

On his other side Jonathan shifts forward, his forearms braced on his spread knees as he contemplates the fire. 

“Hate’s a powerful force. It can do strange things to a man.” He speaks slowly, carefully, in a way Alex is not accustomed to hearing his uncle speak. Alex won’t look at him, still staring blankly at the desert, but he listens. 

“You can hate a man and still care for him. Life’s confusing like that. You can’t beat yourself up over it, the heart will do what it’s going to do, but Alex... In the end, no matter the moments in which he might have been nice to you, he _is_ a monster. He is a selfish, manipulative, _undead_ monster.

“He didn’t give a rat’s ass about whether you lived or died or suffered as long as you could be relied on to get him where he needed to go in the end.”

Unconsciously Alex rubs at the wrist which had held the bracelet, the skin paler, rawer where he’d carried its weight. 

“I know.” The words scrape out of his throat again and it feels as if it’s for the millionth time. “I know.”

And he does. He does know, and that’s part of what’s driving him so mad. He _knows_ Imhotep’s selfish cruelty. He knows his perversion and his violence. He spent days _screaming_ at him about it, insulting him, spitting on him, _fighting_ him.

In the end it seems to have all been for naught. Because somehow, horribly, ridiculously, he _feels_ something for the bastard. He _grieves_ for him. 

The hand he still has wrapped around the collar pulls until the band is pressing painfully against the back of his neck, bruising. His breath hitches because he is angry. He is so angry.

“God damnit.” He chokes. “I don’t want to think about him anymore.”

“Bonds form in strange ways Alex.” Ardeth gentles. “It is not your fault, you are not weak, and you betray nothing in forgetting him.”

“I feel like I lost.” Alex manages say, the moment Ardeth’s words stop, rushing to get it out. “I fought like hell, I fought him so _hard_ and I feel like I _lost_.”

At these words Jonathan shifts closer to him, sliding in the sand until he’s just inches from Alex, close enough to be warm and comforting but not stifling. 

“You’re alive though Alex. And you’re going to keep on living. You’re going to live, and you’re going to heal up, and you’re going to be great and you’re going to forget about him and that, that is winning.”

“He can take nothing from you that you do not readily give.” Ardeth adds emphatically, still sitting on the other side of the flames. “He has injured you, tried to steal parts of you away. He could not, though. Your strength, your victory, your honor yet lies with you. Reclaim it.”

Alex’s head drops like a weight and hangs heavy against his chest as he shudders and fights back tears. “I will.” He promises quietly. “I know. I will. I just... Hurt.”

“I know old boy.” Jonathan soothes, and for the first time reaches out to lay a gentle hand on the nape of Alex’s neck and it’s good, it feels good. “You knew him intensely, if not nicely, and you didn’t part easily.”

The hurt is raw and vivid but as the words come it’s as if he’s lanced some wound. It is not healed, but the pressure fades a bit, the ache of it. He sniffs hard sighs, letting his hand let go of the collar to scrub through his hair. It’s too long now. He wants a haircut. 

“It’s just - a couple times I could have nearly said he was nice, you know?”

There’s a beat of silence before Ardeth replies.

“I do not. Every time we have met he’s tried to kill me.” Somehow despite the deadpan delivery Alex knows Ardeth is trying to speak with levity and he laughs once because it’s almost funny. 

“Me too.” Jonathan adds. “And that woman of his, woo boy. She stole my golden stick, can’t forgive her for that.”

“She was awful.” Alex agrees. “Good riddance.”

“Good riddance to all of them. The world is better cleansed of that darkness.” Ardeth returns with his typical blunt solemnity and Alex almost laughs again because he likes this man. He wishes they could have met under better circumstances. Maybe he will visit in London again, with a less dire apocalypse riding on his heels. 

They are still beneath the stars, each watching the fire and listening to the quiet crack and snap of the burning wood, the wind, the sand-

“Think you can sleep yet?” His uncle asks after a period of peace and Alex sighs before he nods.

“Good.” Jonathan says, brightly, lifting his hand so he can pat his shoulder firmly. “Take my tent then, no need to go waking up your parents now that they’re probably just falling asleep.”

Alex smiles a little in gratitude and leans into his Uncle fondly before rising to his feet. 

“Thanks.” He says, looking at his uncle, and at the mysterious man of his father’s bedtime stories who has sat with him without judgement. 

He feels embarrassed suddenly and blushes and ducks his head.

“It has been my pleasure. Rest well Alexander.” The warrior offers him simply in reply. And Alex nods before retreating to the relative privacy of his uncle’s empty tent. 

Before he drops the flap, he glances once behind him and sees Ardeth rise in the orange glow of the dwindling fire, and move to sit next to Jonathan. Their shoulders touch gently as they begin to speak in low, relaxed tones to one another. 

Alex smiles to himself and turns to his bedroll. 

It will be alright. 

It will. 

\----

Imhotep walks from a gray room which holds a star shaped key, into a green room which holds nothing but looming, ancient walls.

He walks from a blue room which holds a pair of daggers, into a yellow room which has only a geometric pattern carved into the floor. 

An orange room holds a pistol. 

A red room holds a pile of ancient linen wrappings.

A brown room holds a papyrus scroll which bears the orders for his death, the Pharoah’s cartouche the key to his demise. 

He has been here for years he thinks. 

He does not need to rest, does not need to stop. He has stalked endlessly from room to room, driven through the silence to see what awaits him in the next chamber. It is never clear what he is supposed to glean from each offering he encounters, but his frustration over this has tempered with time. 

Mostly he just feels weary, now. 

This place has provided him nothing if not _time_. Time to reflect. To remember. To grieve. To forget. 

Although the agony of Anck su Namun’s betrayal still galls him, the pain does not strike quite so hot as it once did. She was a poor choice of beloved, he knows that now. 

Still, he has naught to blame for his torment but himself. He acknowledges this as he walks. He is alone in his responsibility for his fate. In his self-righteous fury he sought to take on the powers of godliness for himself, and he has fallen hard as man is wont to do when reaching for such glories. 

That is perhaps his most important lesson in this place. The remembrance that he is indeed just a man. He may have dragged the very powers of legion up from the depths with him, but he is a mortal all the same. Thrice-damned now. It is his fate to suffer and to die like any. 

And how he suffers.

He thinks often of Alex. 

Though the time he knew the boy was brief, it was the sweetest of things, embittered only through Imhotep’s own hubris. 

In the monotony of this world Imhotep has imagined at times more chapters of that story he had painted for Alex in the close, quiet confines of their desert tent. 

He thinks of meeting the boy as a temple hand, a young server hoping to attain some measure of renown in the priesthood. He thinks of the fineness of his figure in the simple linen garb of old; of the sharpness of his wit, of the pleasure of his conversation. They would have made fine friends, he imagines. Better lovers, when Imhotep had wooed him. 

Had he not fallen so easily for pretty power. 

Should he be grateful, he wonders, for the cruel twists his life took, if only to allow him brief congress with the boy? Was it worth the weight of his soul?

How cruel indeed, he thinks, to remember his own callousness towards the child. His violence. His beastliness. 

He is what they have always called him. A creature. 

In his dark heart he has owned this. With time he has accepted these are his sins, and that there is no forgiveness to be had except from the lips and heart of a boy who is separated from him now by the inky black void of death itself. 

If he had his chance Imhotep would win his salvation from the child, his prize. He would _serve him_ , with a full and glad heart, until the end of his unnatural days...

In a white room He climbs five hundred and fifty-five steps up a single steep staircase. At the top, just as he he crosses a new threshold, he could swear he hears for the first time in an eternity the sound of something other than wind and sand. There is a sigh at his ear, a tired breath - 

Then he finds himself walking into something _new_. 

\----

Alex turns over to feel a wet breeze blow over his face, a cool contrast to the heat of the summer evening. 

He opens his eyes.

It is not full dark yet, but the hazy, bleary light of early evening.

Alex blinks, his breath catching as he registers the bed that stretches away from the hand he has flung out the side, the worn marble floor, the vaulted pillars, and the slippery wend of the Nile he spies between the columns.

He is here again.

The boy shuts his eyes because it _hurts_. 

He had hated Imhotep at the beginning. He’d grown up on stories of the man, of the _monster_ , and he had hated him. Hated him with the vicious glee which only children can hold, taking great relish in his father’s gory descriptions of the priest’s gruesome end. 

When the cultists had dragged him from his parents, dragged him to the ship which would take him to Egypt, dragged him to the feet of the creature, he had hated him.

When Imhotep had forced himself on Alex, taken him roughly against the side of a ruin, he had _hated him_. 

Now for the life of him he can’t remember when he’d started to care for the man as well. 

It wasn’t like one emotion had displaced the other. The hate remained. One simply did not forget being raped. Having something private and valued ripped away with violence destroyed a part of Alex. Yet time and proximity are powerful agents and they bred in Alex a reluctant need for the priest. There was an intensity to Imhotep’s affections, a ferociousness which Alex craved-

But he would not dwell on it any longer. Imhotep was all viciousness and selfish desire and what glimpses Alex got of something better, something more private, were just the pipe-dreams of a spirit half-broken under the weight of an unyielding master. 

Alex squeezes his eyelids tight together, shutting out the dreamscape, and tries to drift away from this fantasy of an Egypt of old and a lover who never existed. 

Yet when he hears the sweep of bare feet over stone he cannot help himself. He turns over on the bed, and opens his eyes. 

\----

Imhotep does not know what to think as he looks around him and sees the receiving room of his quarters of old: white stone, fine linen, ebony furniture, a view of the Nile. 

This is another test. It must be. 

When he glances behind him to study of the last portal he has just passed through, there is nothing but the unbroken bulk of a stone wall.

The sound of the river and the distant clamor of the night market seem deafening after the near silence of the Other World, but it is a welcome din. Imhotep breathes deep. 

At his sides he flexes his fingertips, feeling dizzy for how solid his flesh seems. How real. 

From his old bedroom he knows he can see the river more clearly. His heart swells and the call of ancient waterway pulls at him. Fingers shaking, he begins to walk slowly through his front room, pausing to touch lightly the surface of his writing desk, the head of a golden statue of a jackal, the back of a chair, the fabric of a curtain. 

These objects feel real under his hands the way the relics of the Other World had not. They feel familiar. Alive. 

At the doorway to his bedchamber an oil lamp burns low, its scent savory and dark. For a long moment Imhotep stares at the flame. 

Has he been judged? Is this mercy? 

He reaches up to touch the glass bowl of oil beneath the burning wick and appreciates the heat which nips at his finger tips. 

When he lets the lamp go it swings and torques minutely, evidence of his interaction with it, and an abrupt twinge of the frustration he felt so acutely in his first days of the Other World returns. 

This is far too good to be true. Someone must be mocking him. 

He frowns and turns from the lamp, hands curling into fists, sweeping forward into his old bedroom where his footsteps falter and his spine goes stiff. 

The call of the Nile blows away. The frustration dissipates.

There is a figure lying in his bed already. A figure with fair, familiar skin and messy, familiar hair. 

If Imhotep’s heart yet beat it would have stalled. 

_Alexander_.

\---

Alex opens his eyes. He sees _him_ and his heart _sours_. Is he to be accosted even in his _dreams_? 

He snarls from the sheets, an animal sound, and slides to the side of the bed farthest from the priest who stands so still just inside the entrance to the room. 

It hurts to see him, and it makes Alex furious. 

As he shifts to sit up he feels a weight on his shoulders and chest. A quick glance reveals it to be another of those damned collars, glass beads glinting lightly, and Alex is _furious_. He grips the collar with a wordless sound of rage and savagely tears it from his neck, the clasp bruising his skin before it fails and snaps apart. 

Alex hefts the bulk of the ornament and hurls it as hard as he can at the bastard who dares show his face here. 

Imhotep for his part seems seized by some shock and makes no move to avoid the projectile. It hits him solidly on his bare chest before clattering to the ground, causing the man to flinch backwards for a moment, but his focus remains unbroken. His eyes are wide and fixed to Alex with an intensity which scrubs out some of the teenager’s fury and replaces it with numb doubt. 

“Get out.” Alex rasps, speaking with more bravado than he feels. 

This is a dream. He knows this is a dream. He has control here. 

He slams his fist against the bed as his voice raises to a shout. “Get out!” 

Noticing a few stray beads which were ripped from the collar and are now lying on the sheets, Alex scrabbles for one and hurls it at his tormentor, hitting him in the shoulder. He grabs another and hits him in the thigh. He misses with the third, but by that point Imhotep’s trance has broken and he is moving towards the bed.

With a yelp Alex turns from the priest to try and get away, instead getting tangled in the sheets. Kicking viciously, he tries to free himself.

Fingers like iron wrap around his upper arm and Alex yells, whipping his head back to face Imhotep. He raises his captured arm aggressively, his hand balled tight into a fist. 

“Let go.” He snarls, heart racing, but Imhotep is enthralled. 

“Is this true?” He asks, voice barely more than a harsh whisper.

“Is what true?” Alex cries.

Time slows to a crawl as Imhotep raises his hand. Alex’s eyes are wide as saucers. Terrified, like a doe before a hunter, his body is frozen as he waits for the man’s touch. 

Yet the priest simply reaches out, his body relaxed in its awe, and lets the fingertips of his unoccupied hand ghost reverently over Alex’s cheek. 

Something inside Alex’s chest _crawls._

The boy leans away from the touch, stretching back as far as he can in Imhotep’s grip. He reaches up with his free hand to try and pry Imhotep’s fingers from around his arm, but they are like steel.

“Stop.” He chokes out, attempting to be firm, feeling as if he may be sick.

For a moment his words do nothing. Then with a shaky exhalation Imhotep lets his hand fall.

“It is true.” The priest murmurs, his eyes so laser focused it feels as if they might burn through Alex’s skin and char him to the bone. The teenager’s face adopts a twisted expression and he tries to surreptitiously scoot backwards off the bed, his hand rubbing his bruised arm subconsciously. 

“Go away.” He manages to choke out.

The bald man blinks. 

His demeanor is off. Strange. Even for a dream this is not the Imhotep Alex would expect. This is a less confident Imhotep. Less domineering. 

Imhotep blinks again and shakes his head like he’s hearing Alex speak for the first time. 

“I have missed you.” He declares, his words painted with the most sincerity Alex has ever heard him use. 

It makes his heart hammer in him. His nausea doubles.

“It’s been two bloody days, I haven’t had time to miss you.” Alex snarks, the lie slipping easily off his tongue.

“You yet live?” Imhotep asks slowly, his gaze fixed on Alex’s face, watching him for any hint of deception and once again the boy scowls. 

“I bloody well hope so.”

For a moment Imhotep seems unable to form a sentence, just contemplating the vision of the boy before him, struggling to process what he has been told. 

“This is a dream.” He declares at last. His shoulders sag and a light frown mars his features. He glances over his shoulder towards the entryway he has just come through, but what he’s looking for Alex has no idea. 

He doesn’t wait to find out. “It’s a nightmare.” The boy declares, and reaches down with shaking hands to finally untangle his legs from the sheets and get his ass off the bed. 

His rustling however alerts Imhotep to his actions and the priest’s head whips back around, his hands shooting out to capture both of Alex’s wrists. 

Alex startles with a yell, trying to wrench himself free. He throws his weight backwards in an attempt to overwhelm his captor. Imhotep’s arms extend to follow Alex’s pull, but he holds fast.

With a noise of frustration the boy is towed back into Imhotep’s space, close enough to breathe each other, to feel each other’s warmth-

“I can smell you.” Imhotep murmurs against Alex’s temple - like it’s a marvel - and Alex angrily laughs because he _can’t help it._

“Sorry, I haven’t had a chance yet for a bath!” He snarls against the man’s cheek. 

For a long minute they cling to a tenuous stillness, faces pressed close, and Alex tries not to breathe, because if he does, he knows he’ll smell Imhotep too. Like incense, and linen, and sand-

He swallows hard. 

“Let me go.” He commands, anxious but trying to be firm. 

To his surprise, Imhotep inhales once, deeply, and then complies. 

The priest’s fingers unwrap from Alex’s wrists before Imhotep slowly lowers his hands to his lap, resting his palms on the tops of his thighs. Skin to skin, dark and warm against the white linen sheets.

Alex blinks as he draws his wrists in protectively close to his body. As he watches Imhotep’s hands settle he realizes abruptly that the man is essentially nude. The robe he has about his shoulders is the same sheer nonsense he often wore while they were traveling. Between his slightly parted thighs his prick hangs large and unapologetic. Alex swallows, making a foolish little noise which is half hysterics and half despair. His cheeks flush, and he becomes acutely aware of his own nakedness.

Is he so used to Imhotep’s nudity, to his own, that it takes him a full fifteen minutes to recognize it? 

It feels too natural to be base around his man; for this man to be base around him. The prudish mores coached into him in his English schoolroom seem not to apply when he’s with Imhotep anymore. They have delved so deep into impolite behavior that there is no returning to civilized conduct. 

Under Alex’s gaze that impressive prick stirs, and the boy is alarmed to find himself not afraid, only exhausted, and irritated, and resentful. 

Ignoring the heat he can feel coloring his cheeks, he crosses his arms over his chest and scowls. 

“This is my dream.” He says aloud, trying for ‘firm.’ “My rules. You can’t hurt me here.”

Alex jerks his gaze up from Imhotep’s lap, frustrated that the man’s body continues to be such a distraction. He expects condescension, mocking, but when he catches Imhotep’s eye all he gets is unflinching scrutiny. 

“I wish to serve you.” Imhotep replies simply after a moment’s pause. His voice is as deep and alluring as it has always been and Alex hopes he hides the shiver which runs up his spine. “I have been given a chance to pay back the debt I owe to you.”

“Horse shit.” Alex barks, the favored curse of his father when his mother isn’t around. It slips from his tongue victoriously. He feels like this is a battleground, and for the first time he feels like he is armed. Like he has a chance at winning.

This is his dream. He will overcome this. This man will not best him. This nightmare will not break him. 

A glint of surprise flickers over Imhotep’s features before the priest grits his teeth in a small show of frustration and breathes deeply to center himself. 

“You are a trial.” He mutters and Alex juts his chin forward in an effort to look imperious.

“If I’m bothering you, you can leave.”

Imhotep glances theatrically around the regal bed chamber they’re in. For the first time since he’s arrived a sense of aloofness returns to the man’s movements. “These are my rooms.” He argues, his irritation turned smug as he corrects the boy. “And you believe you can force me to leave?”

There’s one last pale-green bead left on the sheets to his left and Alex snatches it up Without pausing to reason with himself, he flicks it at Imhotep. 

His practice with his slingshot has done him well. The projectile sails across the short distance between them and lands with an audible smack between the madman’s eyes. 

“This is _my_ dream.” He declares. “That makes it _my_ room.”

There’s no time for him to react when Imhotep moves. 

In an impressive display of strength he grabs Alex and twists to toss him onto the center of the bed, throwing a leg over the boy’s hips to straddle his shocked body. 

Seizing his wrists he pins them to the bed. “Insolent child!” He snaps. “Do not goad me!”

A renewed blossom of fear appears in Alex’s eyes. His heart thunders, burning. 

Will it hurt like it did the first time, against rough stone, beneath a hot sun? It takes him a while to work enough saliva back into his dry mouth to speak. 

“What’s the point?” He argues, voice trembling, but determined. “You’ll fuck me if I’m polite and you’ll fuck me if I’m rude.” He spits out the curse like it’s an anthem, a battle cry. Angry words are all he seems to have left.

Heavy breaths cause Imhotep’s chest to heave. On every inhalation he brings their skin so close to touching that Alex can feel the heat pouring off the man. 

Like the sun. Like the sand. Like the desert.

He can’t help himself, he’s like a well trained dog, his face flushing dark with shame and anger as arousal floods him and his cock begins to swell. 

“Damn you.” He hisses, then tosses his head back against the bed with a furious pout on his lips, his fingers flexing and un-flexing in agitation where they’re pinned beneath Imhotep’s hands. 

\----

Something in Imhotep’s belly goes cold as he watches Alex resign himself. 

Where before he would have felt triumph he now feels regret. Before there would have been confidence and now there is doubt. 

His hands feel wrong wrapped like vises around these wrists. Not like this. 

He slides his fingers from the boy’s skin and lifts them away. 

He sits back on his heels slowly, his knees still bracketing the boy’s hips but his body no longer bearing his smaller form down onto the bed. 

For a moment Alex stays frozen like a rabbit before a wolf, then he bolts. Sliding out from between Imhotep’s legs, he shuffles away until he’s pressed against the head board, his knees drawn loosely in front of him in some form of protection.

His eyes narrow in suspicion. 

Something once stoic inside of Imhotep aches. 

The high-priest settles his spine and places his hands on the tops of his thighs again. It’s as if he’s meditating, or praying, but he keeps his eyes locked onto Alex’s form. It is his desire to know him, to read him, to make note of every unconscious cue the boy’s body is giving. He will listen this time. He will listen.

“I want to wake up now.” Alex says, quietly, hands fisted in the sheets. He sounds exhausted. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Imhotep scowls and his chest hurts. 

With a deep breath he wrenches his gaze away from the tableau in front of him, his head incidentally turning towards the world beyond their chambers. 

Outside there is a growing dark stretching over the land. There is the glitter of barge lamps on the river and the sliver of a crescent moon delicately cut from the sky. 

All of this he has imagined sharing with a beloved. He has yearned for this, obsessed over this fantasy in his endless walk through the land of the dead. Now, when faced with his chance, with reality-

There is a great deal more that needs to be said than he knows how to say.

With a quiet sigh he turns his gaze back to the boy curled up at the head of his bed. O’Connell’s eyes are serious and wary as they catch his. 

“Forgive me, Alexander O’Connell.”

Far from comforting the boy, Imhotep’s words cause Alex’s eyes widen and his brows dip in a disturbed fashion. 

The priest scowls. “For what it is worth, my time in the underworld has granted me some insight into the depth and breadth of my sins. For much I feel no remorse, but for you, regret plagues me.”

His teeth are set hard against each other as he steadies himself, breathing deep.

“Believe what you will,” he continues, assuming some semblance of calm. “But I have no desire to hurt you again. I only wish to repay some small portion of my debt. Perhaps then the gods will grant me some peace.”

\----

The room has darkened significantly in the past minutes. There is a lamp hung from the sconce in the wall, but it’s orange glow is meager compared to the descending shadow.

Imhotep is a dark presence looming at the foot of the bed. Regal and still. Alex feels small and swallowed up in comparison.

The white sheets are smudged purple and blue in shadow, twisted in the boy’s fists. 

Alex breathes shallowly as he tries to center himself. 

“I don’t believe you.” He raps, at length.

He can hear more than see Imhotep swallow at his declaration. The man stays still and that’s good, that’s good. Alex can breathe a moment. He can think. 

It’s hard to reason with this aching pressure in his chest, this _squeeze_ which holds tight and won’t let go. 

He hurts because he wants this. He wants this. He wants there to be something good. He wants there to be some part of this man that cared for him. 

He hopes that Imhotep cannot see that his eyes are bright with frustration when he whispers “But I wish I did.”

Something soft and subtle flickers in Imhotep’s expression, and it makes Alex weary. It feels intimate to see gentler things on the monster’s face. It feels nice. Which feels bad. It makes Alex’s head ache and his heart hurt. He turns his gaze away from Imhotep with a sniff.

“You’re dead anyway. You fell. I don’t know why my mind is tormenting me with this.” Gritting his teeth he leans forward and puts his head in his hands. “It doesn’t help.” He murmurs, muffled and broken to his knees.

He is broken. He is. In all of Imhotep’s violence Alex stood strong, but with this fantasy of compassion...

There’s nothing Alex has left to shield himself with. 

“Alexander.”

Alex shudders and presses his forehead to his knees.

“Alexander.” Imhotep murmurs again, quieter, firmer.

In the cocooned darkness of his curled position Alex feels the softest brush of fingertips over his knee. It’s gentle in a way which is entirely foreign and Alex draws his arms around himself but does not draw away. 

Imhotep sighs. “If I had not been so set on my revenge, perhaps I could have recognized the glorious alternative you offered me, my prize.”

His words slip out the same way his apology did, sincere and unexpected and unbelievable. 

_I don’t like this dream._ Alex thinks, bitterly. _This is unfair. This is cruel._

“I do not belong to you. ” He says aloud. He is no one’s prize.

Before him Imhotep rasps a laugh. “No, Alexander O’Connell. You never did.”

After a moment’s pause Imhotep adds “A prize must be earned, and I failed to do that. Perhaps, if the gods are merciful, I will yet one day have a chance to redeem myself.”

Something about this strikes Alex as amusing and he laughs rough and wet against the tops of his thighs, leaning back enough that he can free a hand and swipe at his still-closed eyes and stuffed nose aggressively. He sniffs. “Haven’t you had enough second chances?”

Imhotep sobers.

“I do not know.” He replies honestly.

“For the first time in several thousand years I can say truly that my fate is out of my hands. I control nothing that occurs from here on out.” Imhotep frowns. “I cannot say this pleases me, but I will not dwell in delusion and attempt to convince myself otherwise.”

More sincerity from the monster. It makes Alex’s head swim. 

He opens his eyes, weary, and mutters “This is a strange dream.”

Imhotep’s lips pull smoothly into a small smirk. “It is a blessing from the gods.”

“A curse.”

Imhotep’s light touch against his knee becomes a caress, a stroke of fingers over his kneecap, curling to cup the back of his calf. There is no mistaking his intent. “Allow me to share my blessing then.” He offers, confident, and Alex snorts derisively. 

“Fuck you.”

A frown forms on the priest’s lips but it is not angry. His hand remains on the boy’s leg. “Alex. Allow me to serve.”

Alex shakes his head sharply but makes no move to pull away from Imhotep’s touch. “You can’t have me.”

“I am aware.” The older man placates, his thumb beginning to chaff at the tense muscle. “Allow me to offer you pleasure. Your pleasure.”

“And you?”

“I have been made to witness an eternity tainted by my regret. I will find more than enough satisfaction in being allowed to serve you as I have wished.”

Alex hesitates in the dark, standing on a precipice of want. He wants to believe him. He wants to give in, here, in the dark. He wants to let the dream run its course, praying all the while that it will not turn into a nightmare. 

There’s something off though, something too real and too raw. This doesn’t feel like an easy fantasy. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” He asks, a bit breathless, a bit desperate. “You only fell two days ago, you’re not making any sense-”

Imhotep interrupts with a soothing noise in the back of his throat and tilts his head infinitesimally to the side before he speaks. “In a moment above,” He begins slowly, putting words for the first time to a truth he has so vividly experienced. “An eon may pass below. It has been decades. Centuries.”

The elder pauses and breathes deep as if savoring something in the air which is beyond Alex’s ability to taste. When he exhales a look of satisfaction crosses his features. “I have waited a long time to return to you.” 

Alex has nothing to say in response to that. 

His hands twitch, however. He wants to move. 

A compulsion drives him, primitive and desperate, to lift a hand to touch Imhotep’s cheek softly, his narrow finger tips stroking over the tanned flesh in the barest of caresses. 

He feels firm. Real.

“I want to hurt you.” Alex says, hoarse, terrified. “I don’t forgive you. I want to make you hurt.”

“I already hurt, child.” Imhotep replies seriously. “If you wish to strike me however I will not retaliate.”

There’s a long break for silence. It seems that Alex will not take Imhotep up on his offer, his fingers moving up and down slowly over that powerful jaw, the prominence of a cheek bone. 

When Alex strikes it is so swift Imhotep does not have time to brace. The boy reels his hand back and brings it forward with as much force as he can muster from his sitting position. His open hand creates such a sound as it collides with the proud man’s face, the violence of it worse than the impact itself. 

Alex startles to hear it, loud in the otherwise humid quiet of their retreat. He pulls his hand back to his chest in fear. 

“I hate you.” He blurts out, heart racing. 

The force of the blow has turned Imhotep’s head to the side. Alex’s hear hammers as he waits for the retaliation, for aggression, for pain-

But there is nothing more than a long exhale from the bigger man before he turns his face back towards Alex, expression neutral. 

His hand still has not left Alex’s leg. It doesn’t tighten, it stays loose, gentle. 

Alex begins to shiver uncontrollably. 

Imhotep’s brows dip in a frown and he shifts his weight so he can slide himself forward, closer to the boy. His other hand comes up to touch Alex’s other shin, his palm laying flat to thin skin which covers the bone, smoothing warm and slightly rough up and down the paler flesh. 

“Alexander.” He murmurs. “My prize.”

“I hate you.” Alex repeats, voice little more than a whisper, no heat in it. “I hate you so much.”

Imhotep sighs heavily and keeps petting the skin beneath his hands. “I understand. Though I relished your loathing before. I regret it now. I was short sighted in my pursuit of power.”

There’s nothing Alex has to say to that so he simply unwraps his arms from where they’ve been pressed against his stomach, moving them stiffly so he can press his palms to the bed, grounding himself. His eyes watch as Imhotep’s one hand moves over his leg. Up and down, up and down, slow, slow-

“May I give you one pleasant memory of my touch?” Imhotep murmurs into the close darkness between them. The oil lamp sputters and the bare orange light casts strange shadows over Imhotep’s face. 

Alex wants. 

“Yes.” He says, voice too tight, too sharp, too quick. He speaks before he can convince himself not to, his fingers curling into the sheets anxiously. “But you will stop if I tell you to.” He adds after a second, hands tightening their grip further at his own daring. 

Imhotep merely dips his chin in a slow and solemn promise, and continues to pet the flesh he’s already been granted access too. 

A breeze blows through the room, wet and warm and pleasant on Alex’s skin. The boy shudders, and nearly vocalizes his exhaustion as he lets his shoulder’s sag. 

He gives in to himself. He wants this, if only in a dream. 

\----

A rumble not unlike a purr emerges from Imhotep’s throat and he leans forward to bury his face against Alex’s throat, nuzzling with his nose, rubbing his lips against the artery. 

His hands release Alex’s legs to reach around the bulk of thighs and grip at his waist. With his feet braced to support them the older man pulls forward gently, encouraging Alex to slide his hips down the bed and let his head and shoulder’s fall back against the pillows. 

An anxious sigh escapes Alex’s throat, but he does not protest as he his led to lay down beneath his monster, straightening his legs and leaving his arms flat at his sides, unresisting.

With the moon high the shadows are long. They paint shades of blue over the teenager’s skin, his pale color soaking in the cool tones so he looks smooth and precious like lapis or a desert oasis. 

Imhotep feels as if he is dying of thirst. He feels as if he is a peasant seeing a rare gem for the first time. He has never before had a lover whose presence has not been tainted by the promise of violence. 

As he slips back to rest his weight on his heels, he marvels at the chance. His eyes do not blink as he drinks of the sight beneath him, letting his robe slip from his shoulders before he lowers himself again to lie over the boy’s body, slowly sliding down from feature to feature. Clavicle, nipple, wrist, rib are all given care and attention from worshipful lips and questing tongue. 

Beneath him Alex shivers and sighs under each tender ministration. Before long he has raised one hand and is brushing barely there touches over Imhotep’s bald head. Imhotep’s heart soars: the grace of his prize’s fingers is so _sweet_.

Imhotep thanks the gods for a mercy he did not believe they had. 

With a prayer he ducks down and rubs the side of his face against the slowly swelling cock which bumps against his chin. Nuzzling the slender organ, he’s hardly able to believe he has an opportunity to rectify this wrong:

He never allowed himself to properly taste Alexander in the living world. 

He was a fool.

Alex gasps and tenses momentarily as the priest maneuvers the boy’s legs so they’re splayed over his shoulders. Imhotep feels the way his prize rolls his hips minutely, tentatively, seeking pleasure but prepared to bolt away. As the priest settles to lie low over Alex’s pelvis he feels the boy’s lightly calloused heels pressing against his spine. They tremble slightly before holding firm and the priest smiles against the sweet stretch of Alex’s inner thigh, pressing a kiss to the rare flesh he has been granted miraculous access to. 

Darting his tongue out to lap and suckle at the pale skin Imhotep dares to imagine there is a warmth and sweetness which is entirely unique to his boy. It is a flavor more wholesome and filling than any he has ever savored before. 

Still, this is but skin. Sweet skin, precious skin, but there are bolder rewards to be earned if he dares. 

With a lingering lave of his tongue over the wet and reddened patch of thigh, Imhotep turns his head - pleased when Alex’s hand remains curved around his skull, following his movement - and dips in to lick his prize’s engorged cock from balls to tip. 

With a yelp Alex’s hips jerk upwards, but Imhotep is ready. He chuckles low and dark, huffing hot breathe over the boy’s prick as he holds the boy’s hips still and firm to the bed. Alex whimpers and squirms. 

Feeling smug, Imhotep dives in and tongues at the head aggressively, his hands restraining as Alex’s pelvis begins to rock forward and backwards in wanton request for more. 

It is with a bone deep sense of satisfaction that Imhotep obliges. He has not done this since his own youth, early on in his training as a priest, but he smugly finds he has not forgotten the art. 

Smoothly he tilts his head, opens his mouth, and descends on Alex’s cock until his throat convulses around the tip, the soft tissues constricting as he swallows.

Alex shrieks. 

His body gives itself over completely to Imhotep’s ministrations. 

The boy’s thighs quiver where Imhotep has pulled them over his shoulders, tensing. He seems unable to fight his instincts to clamp down on the head paying such tender attention to his cock. 

His fingers of his free hand release the sheets and scrabble to grab on to _something_ to try and keep from coming apart so quickly. In contrast to the clawing hand he has curved around the smooth skin of Imhotep’s skull, he raises the other he fists at his own hair bobbing his head compulsively as he fights to steady his breath, eyes wild as he dares himself to stare down at the priest, shocked and desperate and aroused. 

A keen escapes his throat when Imhotep sucks hard, the priest’s tongue drawing a firm line up the underside of his cock. Alex’s eyes slide half shut, his whole body trembling now. Little breathy whimpers break free as he surrenders, and surrenders, and surrenders. 

Imhotep feels it the moment the boy begins to give in, to trust him with his pleasure, and he eases back to suckle just at the head of the boy’s prick in gratitude, tongue depressing the slit and Alex chokes on a wail, biting his lip to keep quiet. 

For a moment the priest pulls away, hands rubbing lightly over the boy’s thighs, gentling him as he trembles. 

“Be loud.” He commands in a rough and rumbling voice which makes Alex moan. “Make noise my prize, there is no one to hear.”

Doubt and a memory of distrust furrows the boy’s brow for an instant but Imhotep tells himself to remain calm, determined, and again Alex’s expression relaxes as the priest slowly lowers himself back down to Alex’s cock, flattening his tongue and stroking firmly over the rigid flesh. 

Imhotep understand that it is difficult to trust, but for this, it seems Alex is willing to try. 

Imhotep’s greatest prize now has both hands on Imhotep’s head, rubbing over his skull and the Egyptian hums in approval, lipping along the underside of the boy’s cock as reassurance, one hand reaching behind to stroke and squeeze the boy’s balls. 

“Shit-” Alex hisses, his fingers tightening on Imhotep’s scalp and the priest is pleased, so very pleased. 

He swallows the boy again, as far as he is able. He bobs his head, his hand moving to wrap around what’s left at the base to jerk that in time, stroking the fine young cock, fist sliding through the wet smear of precome and saliva his mouth is leaving behind.

The boy under his hands is shaking like a leaf, his cock hot and swollen and leaking, his hips jerking forward in uncoordinated need.

“Fuck, Imhotep, _fuck_ -”

‘ _Fuck my mouth, boy, you are allowed._ ’ Imhotep thinks, commanding. He wants to taste this boy, daub out a regret he has carried with him through the halls of the dead. Alex must spill in him, give him his taste, give him something to carry inside him, the flavor of his body-

Imhotep’s tongue flicks rapidly at the head, his fingers strokes along the shaft, and Alex bucks up hard, holding himself up with an arched back as he presses _deep_ , too breathless to cry out, nothing more than an airy moans fleeing his throat unbidden as he rides the bolt of pleasure. Gasping loudly, he’s not quite able to climax before he sags back to the bed and allows Imhotep to resume bobbing over his flesh. He moans wetly, needy and frees one of his hands so he can push himself up into a half sitting position, his body curling around the head moving in his lap, teeth grit and eyes barely open as his thighs tense and relax spasmodically, needing to come, needing, needing-

With a growl Imhotep knows Alex will feel in his _bones_ the priest buries his prize as deep as he can take him and Alex _wails_. 

A hot wash of fluid sprays from Alex’s cock and coats the back of Imhotep’s throat. The priest tenses as he fights the urge to cough, refusing to let up the warm wet pressure he’s providing for his prize. Above him Alex is sobbing quietly, body jerking awkwardly as it rides the waves of pleasure coursing through it. 

Imhotep slowly relaxes, his own cock rock hard where it’s pressed between him and the bed but he makes no move to touch it as he slowly draws back. He suckles lightly at the flesh in his mouth until at length he pulls away and replaces lips with his fingers, gently cupping the spent organ with his warm palm while he raises to his knees and shifts forward until he can lay his weight fully over Alex, pressing him to the bed, urging the boy to drop his head back against the pillows and relax while he breathes deep and desperate to slow his racing heart. 

Every inch of Alex is trembling, quaking in wake of his orgasm. He doesn’t seem aware of it himself as he raises his arms to wrap them tight around Imhotep’s shoulders, pulling the larger man even closer than gravity demands. He squeezes those broad shoulders and his whole body shakes, a sharp heavy sigh gusting out of him as Imhotep works his own hands into the space between Alex’s shoulder blades and the bed and squeezes back. 

Imhotep’s groin _throbs_ and he is perhaps more aroused now than he has ever been before in an encounter with the boy. To hold him like this, so needy and so trusting, a fierce possessive wave flows through Imhotep and he must fight the urge to growl as he rolls his body just enough to pull them both on to their sides without disengaging their desperate embrace. 

“I hate you.” Alex chokes out even as he continues to squeeze Imhotep’s shoulders. “God, I hate you.”

“I understand.” He murmurs in gentle reply, his lips pressing a kiss to the crown of sweat mussed hair tucked beneath his chin. 

Against his throat he feels Alex’s breath hitch and he hums very low in the back of his throat, a soothing sound which has the boy curling his legs up to thread them between Imhotep’s own, either unaware or simply unbothered by the turgid prick which is pressing into this thigh. 

“Sleep, child.” Imhotep murmurs, running warm broad fingers up the youth’s spine and Alex shudders hard before he sighs sharply and his shivering begins to die down. 

It is a long time before he is truly still. 

All the while Imhotep keeps his hand moving in slow, gentle strokes. 

He knows with absolute certainty that this is all he will have. When he closes his eyes, when he sleeps, he will be cast from this place and he will never see Alexander like this again. 

Perhaps it is for the best that the boy shall move on, shall put him from his mind, but in the moment Imhotep is selfish. He clings to the boy and demands he acknowledge, demands that he know him. He demands everything from him, body and soul. He holds Alex secure and as his body relaxes he will bid to watch over the boy through this strange and miraculous night.

He does not startle when the boy speaks quietly against his chest, but it is a near thing. He had thought him asleep. 

Faintly, muffled, Alex murmurs “In another life, if you had another chance-” 

His words trail off and as the minutes pass Imhotep knows the boy has slipped truly into slumber. 

With a sigh of his own the priest kisses the top of the boy’s head again and settles against the pillows one last time. 

He does not know what judgement will await him after this but he is grateful the gods have granted at least this small reprieve. 

He was a good priest once. Devoted. Strong. 

Now he sends a silent prayer of thanks and lets his eyes drift closed as the exhaustion of millennia begins to press its terrible weight against his soul. 

Alex is a warm and glorious weight in his arms as he fades from this dream. 

Forever he will worship. Until the end of time. 

\----

When Alex wakes he is alone in his uncle’s tent, wrapped in the same heavy bedroll he had fallen asleep in. 

There are no columns and no fine linens, no Nile vistas and night music. No company. No tormentors. Only himself. 

Slowly he sits up, the blankets pooling around his lap. The early morning air is cool but promises immanent warmth. 

Alex rubs his eyes, his head feeling strangely empty and his body relaxed. 

He feels centered. Still. 

As he runs a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck he pauses as he encounters the familiar band of gold. For a long moment he stares blankly at the wall of his tent, fingers lightly hooked around the gold. 

Then his lips firm into an expression of determination and he’s up and moving, tucking his shirt into his pants, grabbing his socks and boots and shoving his feet into both in a rush before he stumbles between the tent flaps to a blindingly white sun sitting low on the horizon, a piercing blue sky, and the expansive glory of the desert. 

For a moment he his breathless and still, then he is stumbling towards the pair of figures wrapped in dark blankets at the edge of the cold fire pit. 

“Uncle John. Uncle John. Jonathan. _Uncle Jonathan_.” His voice gains volume as he approaches them, almost manic as he needs his uncle to wake up now-

The Englishman picks his head up in shock, eyes peeled wide from the rude awakening, blinking at his nephew for a moment before he throws the blankets off of himself and tries to stumble upright to meet Alex.

“What’s it? Alex, What?” He grabs the boy’s shoulders before they can collide with each other, his bare chest and arms goose-pimpling in the early chill and Alex giggles before he can help it, shaking his head because he’s being an idiot and breathes sharply to steady himself. 

“I’m alright, sorry, I’m alright, I just want it off.”

Jonathan stares at him with a complete lack of understanding in his eyes. 

“What?” He asks, sounding like he desperately doesn’t want to be frustrated but is getting there and Alex laughs a little bit again because he’s breathless and he’s ready and he wants it _off_.

“Just take it off.” He says, and his expression firming from giddy to determined as he speaks, his heart is light and his soul is still. He’s alright. “I don’t need it.” He offers by way of explanation, gesturing towards his neck with a flappy gesture and Jonathan nods slowly as he seems to get it. 

“Alright.” He says slowly. “Alright. You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Alex affirms and Jonathan nods.

“Alright. Yes, alright, just, blimey it’s cold, just let me get a shirt on-”

Jonathan whirls around and Ardeth has already risen, his clothing not perfectly arranged but far more dignified than Alex’s uncle. He’s holding out the Englishman’s shirt with a bemused expression on his face and Jonathan sighs as he snags the garment from his fingers. 

“Alright, Alright I think Ozzy must have some bolt cutters lying around his death trap.” Jonathan mutters more to himself than to Alex as he pushes his arms through the sleeves and does up the buttons of his shirt. 

“Wait here.” He lifts his eyes to Alex and the boy nods, crossing his arms over his chest to ward against the chill and planting his feet firmly in sand. 

Jonathan seems satisfied because he turns and begins the short trek to the dirigible. For no clear reason Ardeth falls into step beside him, his dark hands deftly working to arrange his clothing more to his liking. As they move away Alex can hear his uncle muttering again. 

“One night. One bloody night after more than a decade and I can’t even enjoy a morning after-”

Alex blushes and laughs a little, looking down at his shoes as he listens to his uncle’s words trailing away across the sand. 

When he picks up his head again he turns it towards the white sun and blue sky and feels the building warmth bud against his cheeks. He watches the barest hint of wind pick at the distant peak of a sand dune, catching the fine grains of sand and sending them dancing. 

His heart is still, and he feels well. He smiles, squinting against the sun, and laughs. 

\----

Deep in the archives at the Cairo museum, tucked away in a dark corner, a wind stirs. 

Dust raises from long forgotten treasures, protective sheets flutter, jars and bottles rattle and sand pours in from beneath the door and between the cracks in the walls. 

A stream of fine grains works its way through every crack and aperture, slipping in bit by bit and swirling into the wind, amassing itself, coalescing. 

It’s a quiet thing, scratchy, dark. Atop an ancient altar the grains collect, condense, building layers on layers, sculpting a thing with mass and form and purpose. 

As the last few grains slip under the door and are pulled into the composition, the wind moves with new purpose, slipping like a ribbon between the thinly parted lips of the sand sculpture. 

A moment of silence, then the thing gasps, shudders, and a fine layer of sand falls from the living shoulders of a man. 

Just a man. Nothing more.

The naked man opens his eyes wide to the dark and breathes deep the scents of an Egypt of old, the sound of a laugh lingering in his ears. 

His body shudders and it sits up, it's hands raising before like he can't believe he is here. He is whole. 

He lives again.

Imhotep tilts his head back, scraping in great gulps of air, and he laughs.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [This Shadowed Path](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6044689) by [Scilera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scilera/pseuds/Scilera)




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